


POEMS 






LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



DD00mi2S^3 



POEMS 



BY 



FRANK BUTLER 



ILLUSTRATION BY 

JOHN BARRYMORE 

AN APPRECIATION BY 

HUTCHINS HAPGOOD 



NEW YORK 

JOHN W. LOVELL 
1911 



OovrannZa, HOU 

BT 






CCi^'^53TG0 



DEDICATED 

TO 

MY WIFE 

ALICE JOHNSON -BUTLER 



Of This Edition of 
"POEMS, By frank BUTLER" 
One Thousand Copies Were Made, 
This One Being Number .(.^.O... 



AN APPRECIATION. 

FRANK BUTLER lived the life of a 
poet. Not that of a poetaster of our 
day exquisitely searching for imper- 
ceptible shades of feeling and of word- 
combinations. He was a poet in action and 
in daily habit. His poetry was expressed in 
head-lines of diurnal routine. He was a mod- 
ern troubadour. 

He was a fierce newspaper man. He was 
always on the war-path. To him the rough 
life of the reporter was a dream of romance. 
To him it was a beautiful thing. He made 
it a beautiful thing. He never slumped. To 
the slighest thing he wrote or did he lent his 
spirit. All his work, not merely the best of it, 
but all of it, he made from his heart's blood. 
He worked with all his soul and lived with 
all his soul and he did not know the difference 



VIL 



beUveen li\'mg and worHng, and playing. It 
was all one to kim. 

The white hght of intensity ^^*as his from 
morning till night. All he ^^Tote for the news- 
paper was original. That limited his value, for 
he could not do a conventional thing. It was 
his limitation. In his Hfe there was the same 
limitation. He could not easily take the smooth 
path of custom. He needed to re-en\"isage 
ever>'thing anew, to initiate. TTiis made his 
life intense and wearing. He always gave his 
best, and that is expensive ner\'ously, and is 
generally not desired. His wit was Hke light- 
ning and it hurt. He would rather hurt than 
merely to subscribe. So that only the best 
human beings liked Frank Butler. He was 
too intense, too much on the job of life, to 
please the mediocre sleepy soul. 

After his work on the newspaper was done 
— and it lasted long hours — ^he went "down the 
line" and gave himself — his \Nit, his tempera- 
ment, his unfailing \-ivacity — ^to all who wanted 
or could stand him, and to some who could not 
He gave himself unresen'edly to the news- 
paper, to his friends, to the moment — whether 
it was a moment that devoured or not — ^to Life. 

Vffl. 



He carried carelessness to the point of gran- 
deur. He recognized no limitations. He was 
heroic. And he died at thirty-two. It was 
tragic, but it was logical. 

He tilted against shams, against dullness, 
against Sleep. He could not rest. He railed, 
with a light wafture of the spirit and the ex- 
pression, at the sordid and the respectable alike. 
He took cross-sections out of humanity and 
laughed at the truth of what he thus saw un- 
awares. 

When he saw the truth and loved it he was 
fine and tender. When he saw the truth and 
hated it he was fiercely witty. Rabelaisian in 
his act and word. 

But whatever he saw, whatever he felt, he 
always saw and felt something ; he was always 
active, always intense. So the thread of his 
life snapped early. He leaves in those who 
knew him well the memory of a subtle, sharp, 
beautiful spirit — an enduring memory, a mem- 
ory that forms a part of the life of us who 
survive — a part of our real lives. We are dif- 
ferent and better because he lived. 

May not this be said of all real poets? — that 
we are other and better because they lived? 



IX. 



Frank Butler was a poet in his life and his 
spirit; whatever the accidental quality of these 
verses which follow may be. I leave that to 
the technical arbitres of a special form. Frank 
Butler lived poetry — ^he felt and acted and 
thought it. Sometimes it took strange forms, 
for every poet is individual and unique, but 
even when his life was bitter or Rabelaisian, it 
was intense and real, full of vision, the vision 
of a poet. 

HUTCHINS HaPGOOD. 



X. 



CONTENTS. 

An Appreciation vii. 

I Want You. Little Woman. - - - 1 

Greeting, 2 

Go. Rose o' Mine, 3 

In the Garden of My Heart, - - 4 

Lady. Lips Were Made, 5 

In September, 6 

The Great Salt Marsh, - - - - 7 

I Met Young Pleasure, - - - - 8 

Violets, 9 

The Thought. 10 

Traveler, 11 

Visions, 12 

To Villon's Mistress, 13 

Pride. 15 

Badinage, 16 

ICH DiEN, 17 

He Loved, He Laughed, He Rode 

Away, 18 

You Have Returned, - - - - 19 

Chatterton, 20 

An Answering, 21 



XI. 



CONTENTS. 

To A Pretty Witness, 22 

? 23 

A Letter, 24 

The Day, 24 

To Lionel Blande, 25 

The Daimio's Daughter, - - - 26 

The World is Bright, 27 

The Poets, 28 

To THE Dead Queen, 29 

The Gods and the Pig, - - - - 30 

Why, 32 

The Island's Welcome, - - - - 33 

To John Boyle O'Reilly, - - - - 34 

The Assassin, 36 

A Cluster of Carnations, - - - 38 

Inviolate, 38 

Kyrie Ellison, 39 

To My Beloved, 39 

My Watch, 40 

The Night, 40 

A Rose AS Red, 41 

Alice, 41 

Persephone, 42 



xn. 



I WANT YOU. LITTLE WOMAN * 

I WANT you little woman, when the blue 
is growing dark, 
And the building shadows stretch them- 
selves across the City Park, 
When the sturdy Day is weary and goes away 

to rest 
With his forehead on the bosom of the Evening 
in the West. 

I want you little woman, when I wander sadly 

down 
To the sea-wall at the Battery — the Birthplace 

of the Town; 
Where the white waves and the war-ships in a 

dreary monotone 
Murmur: "Where is she, thy Lady, why walk 

you here alone?'* 

*WriUen to Alice Johnson. 

[I] 



I want you^ little woman, when the city lamps 

are lit 
And I see a happy couple where we were wont 

to sit. 
And I lock my love within me and I wander 

home to sleep 
Where a man may play at childhood and the 

dear God lets him weep. 



GREETING. 



I 



HAD rather be the rose-stem 
To greet you in the morning. 

Than own the fairest rose-gem 
A royal crown adorning. 



I had rather be a starling 
To lilt your heart along. 

Than write the best, my darling. 
Of Hiawatha's song. 



[2] 



GO. ROSE O' MINE. 

GO. rose o* mine, and say from me 
That God hath ta'en the day from 
me 
And left me blind until I see 
Her eyes at morn. 

Go, rose, and bring her back to me. 

The task were not too hard for thee, 

Thou'rt Mary's flower of sweet pity. 

Thou hast His thorn. 

Nor need*st thou, rose, be over bold. 
To thee my love will ne'er be cold. 
Upon her tress of tangled gold 
She'll set thee high. 

So thou may'st stoop and seek her ear. 
So small, so pink, so very dear; 
Tell her of me, forlorn and drear. 
Then thou may'st die. 



[3] 



IN THE GARDEN OF MY HEART. 

I TOOK my love a-walking 
In the Garden of my Heart, 
The fountain plash was talking, 
TTie linnets took a part. 
The wicked white narcissi 

Strained every stem to see 
The kiss my lady's laughing eye 
Had promised unto me. 

The peacock pouted proudly 

Beside the cascade race. 
He screamed a welcome loudly 

From grassy vantage-place; 
The tree- trunks were not shady. 

For every shadow swart 
Had fled before my lady 

In the Garden of my Heart. 

There is a marble palace 

In the Garden of my Heart, 
Where plays the fountain's chalice 

And columned arches start 



[4] 



In rounded rows behind her 

Ten paces set apart, 
And never Grief shall find her 

In the Garden of my Heart. 

God gives no rain to nourish 

The flowers. He sendeth them 
And knows that they will flourish 

Because she tendeth them; 
Each tries to bloom all early 

To see the white smile start; 
Her teeth are pebbles pearly 

In the Garden of my Heart. 



LADY, LIPS WERE MADE. 

1ADY, lips were made for love 
And not for love's deriding, 
Lady, lips disloyal prove 

When kisses end in chiding; 
Eros gave thy lips to be 
Held in trust for him and me. 
In his name I call on thee 
For kisses held in hiding. 



[5] 



IN SEPTEMBER. 



I 



ASKED my Ladye to the Dells 
Of Flowers Fair in Faerie, 

To hearken to the silver bells 
Of tulips and of Rosemarye. 



I found the Summer Roses' tomb, 
A secret knowTi alone to gods; 

I built a house of iris bloom 

With liHes for the lightning rods. 

And when I took my ladye there 

To show her maple leaves so brown. 

She shook her head — ^her yellow hair 
Like Angel's \Nishes fluttered down. 

And all the flow^ers of the corn 
Were angry in the Western wind 

Because my Ladye's eye at morn 
Was better, bluer and more kind. 

And God looked out to gaze at her 
And fleecy clouds across the sky 

Would hang aloft and never stir 
Until my Ladye had passed by. 



[6] 



THE GREAT SALT MARSH. 

THE great salt marsh is a world of green 
And a world of blue is the sea. 
But the white stone house that stands 
between 
Is the world and heaven to me. 

The great salt marsh hath never a stone 
Nor a tree where a bird may rest, 

And the white stone house stands all alone 
Out on the white wave's crest. 

And if I stride over the great salt marsh. 

Or if I sail round by the main. 
She has naught but a word, neither kind nor 
harsh. 

And a smile that a child might gain. 

For over there by the horizon line 
Is a boat with the keel to the sky. 

And a warmer smile than the smile that is mine 
Is not hers to give till she die. 



[7] 



I MET YOUNG PLEASURE. 

I MET young Pleasure one summer morn 
When the sun was high and my heart 
was low; 
She lay on a sheaf of ripened corn 

That caught the August glow. 
"The very lass I have sought," I laughed. 
But the laugh was bitter and died away, 
"Sweet Pleasure, I crave but a single draught 
Of the waters of Lethe the Gods have quaffed 
From the fountains of Yesterday.'* 

"The waters of Lethe, were never mine," 

Young Pleasure replied; she was honest, 
the fay, — 
"I have songs and laughter and jests and wine, 

But Oblivion's waters, I'm sorry to say. 
Lie hidden far in the garden of love 

That blooms forever, — I last but a day. 
Linger with me for my eyes are blue. 
For a day and an hour I swear to be true. 

Then for the waters of Yesterday." 



[8] 



So I lay with Pleasure beneath the shade 

Watching her ivory fingers twine 
The myriad garlands her nymphs had made 

Around the cups of wine. 
Sudden I woke in the chilling dawn 

But Pleasure had left me and fled away. 
Scampered away like a frightened fawn. 
Scampered away at the peep of dawn. 

Still I am searching for Yesterday. 



VIOLETS. 

I HAD some violets, but they withered 
soon 
Beneath the radiance of the April moon; 
Elsie desired them and straightway once again 
They bloomed as 'erst beneath the Springtime 
rain. 



[9] 



THE THOUGHT. 

GOD sent a beautiful Thought astray 
From the realms of light that are 
aeons above, 
Fair as the glorious August day. 
Pure as a maiden's love. 

It lingered a moment beside the throne 
For a last farewell to the Peris there, 

A moment more and the Thought had flown 
Down through the dark blue air. 

A poet looked up through a crowded street. 
As he carelessly passed the while. 

Half caught the Thought, then turned to greet 
A painted woman's smile. 

Another, an artist with trembling arm. 

Holding the wine flask up, 
Drunkenly pondered, but missed the charm. 

And turned again to the cup. 



[10] 



The Thought strove to enter a heart, a girl's. 

But vanity crowded it out; 
It touched her lips, but they, sweet churls. 

Drove it away with a pout. 

TTie Thought grew faint amid worldly things 
Down here in the gray old town, 

It met men's passions and scorched its wings. 
It fled from the cynic's frown. 

No man would give it a welcoming nod. 

No woman a greeting smiled, 
So the poor little Thought flew back to God 

On the lips of a praying child. 



TRAVELER. 



H 



E that hath never known evil 
That same shall never know good; 

The traveler that strides in the meadow 
Is the same that fell in the wood. 



[II] 



VISIONS. 

A ROMAN lamp of simple sheen 
Belit by fair white taper. 
Its bronzing melted into green 
Whereon the cunning shaper 
Hath modelled things in nudity, 
And women in their purity. 
And things of worth as they should be 
Unsoiled by tracing paper. 

A column where the Inner Things 
Which men see in their dreaming 

Are set around in fairy rings 
In very truth — not seeming; 

Its base, Carrara — veined with red; 

Its legend — **To the Fair Unsaid" — 

"To All the Market Men count Dead"- 
A murmur 'mid the screaming. 

A Gondola amid the Fleet, 
A house be-vined to Gables, 

A Dappled Hart whose leaping feet 
Have led him to the stables. 

Mid brazen trumpets one true note, 

A flower in a butcher's coat, 

A Pearl upon a harlot's throat 
That glows amid the sables. 

[12] 



TO VILLON'S MISTRESS. 

VILLON, this is not of me — 
Hark ! in hell beneath the sea. 
Thine enraptured minstrelsie 
First chanted the dead ladies; 
As their wraithes were dear to thee. 
So to me thy bel amie 

TTiough long dead the maid is. 

Did she love thee for the sin 
That thy life was steeped in. 
Or hope that thou might'st unction win, 

Pray to make thee better? 
If t*were so that soul of thine 
Strong and red as Southern wine 

Would have broke her fetter. 

Thou conceived and born in night 
Soul unspoiled by taint of right 
All thy crimes were crystal bright 

First thou babbled*st curses. 
Thou would*st rather stab than fight. 
Steal for drink the widow's mite. 

But not a cup-mate*s verses. 

[13] 



Was she woman mate of man 
Lips to kiss sind eyes to scan. 
Or angelic courtesan — 

Had she blue- veined brow. 
Tell! or was she tail and dark. 
Clinging, lo\ing, lithe and stark, — 

Is she with thee now ? 

Yet to me how fair she seems 
Walking near me in my dreams; 
On her belt a dagger gleams. 

On her head a wimple. 
Donzel, thou are fairly graced 
B\' the weapon at thy waist. 

Young! Warm! Cruel! Simple! 

In the heaven spread above 
That the monk men chatter of 
There is never word of love 

Hell is happier yet; 
One may love in helFs own brink. 
Though no liquor there to drink 

Still her lips are wet 



[14] 



When to 'rich thee by a groat 
Something fell within a moat 
And across its sunken throat 

Gleamed a deep, red rent, 
Villon knew his lady's bower 
Promised safe and pleasant hour 

Till that groat was spent. 

Villon, though the dead are mute 
Let my lyre wake thy lute. 
Thou didst make thy prostitute 

Greater than Knight's ladies. 
Hero! Cut-purse! Gallant! Knave! 
Master! Hear my envious stave 

From thy home in Hades. 



PRIDE. 

WHY should the spirit of mortal be 
meek? 
In His image He made us, surely. 
We're the very best Things He made that 
Week. 
Nor made He the others poorly. 

[15] 



c-^ 



QUOTH 4e: ■"Your lawc may be 
But passion lends it doquence; 
Such love ne'er lingeis long; 
Come, sir, come, sball I receive 
Tlie heart yoa wear i^kmi your sleeve? 
IndpfJ yon cio me wrong!** 

Qoodilie: " No heart's von my skevew 
Sodi cynicism makes me giieve. 

I cany it above, — 
lis here cm mese pieumung fapsw 
I place it dience iqion die tips 

Of yoor while fingen. love." 



[161 



ICH DIEN. 

THREE ostrich feathers waved aloft 
The crest of the son of a queen 
0*er the gabled turrets of Tranby Croft 
And the golden words, "Ich Dien!" 
The words of the gallant Edward 
Who fought at Crecy's ground 
Were writ on the jewelled fillet 
That bound the plumes around. 

In the halls of the merchant Wilson 

Is heard the sound of play. 
The Prince of Wales is dealing cards 

From nightfall until day. 
The future King of England 

Who forsook his liegeman leal — 
On the crest of the Prince's banners 

Let there be graved: "I deal." 



[17] 



HE LO\ED. HE LAUGHED, HE 

RODE A\X-A^'. 



A 



MAIDEN dwelt m the days of old 

In a castle by the Rhine; 
Her eyes woe blue and her hair was 
gold 

As the sun that gleams in wine. 



Fair and sweet as a rose was Ae^ 

A wiU rose on a budding tree, 
Sratffn smnmeis noiseiessiy 

Had graced this maid of AhnajFoie. 

There came a Kni^t from the ^^estern shore 

And bent the siqpple knee. 
He tcJd her tales diat maids adore 

In blithesome minstrelde. 

His step was young and his arm was strong. 
His pfame hung low and his sword was long. 
He sang to her die sweet loYe-song 
Of Hdoise and Normandie. 



[18] 



But they who love reck not the hour 

When memory means pain. 
When love droops like a summer flower 

Beneath the autumn rain. 

But maids are many, and love is play, 
So he rode away at the close of day; 
He loved, he laughed and he rode away. 
The broad, white road to Normandie. 



YOU HAVE RETURNED. 

YOU have returned and Summer seems 
to say: — 
"Since thine arrival, needless me to 
stay!" 
Brought with thee sunshine, beaming, flashing 

down. 
Gilding each roof and spire of the town. 
Yet, to give pause and think on other's ills, 
Whr.t will thev do for sunshine in the hills? 



[19] 



CHATTERTON. 

I LOVE thee. Chatterton, for all that thou 
hast WTit 
None damned the world more roundly, 
none had wit 
To find the jointures in each fool's cuirass 
^Tio gathered round thee, either to harass 
Thy soul with praise — as thou wert wise or 

witty — 
Or worse than all, to pester thee with pity. 
Inmiortal boy ! Too wondrous to be great. 
Thy joy was solitude, thy pleasure hate. 

I see thy lodging through its cobw^ebbed pane 
Level with roofs that glccim beneath the rain. 
Cold as the hymn from church in street below, 
A church w^here Christians w^ho could pay did 

go. 
A fane of God bedecked ^^ith red and gold, 
A mairt where tidings of the Christ were sold. 
He knows not solitude that hath not seen 
An English lodging on a Sabbath e'en. 
I love thee for thine high enduring pride 
That suffered hunger, cold, and naught beside; 
Could fling back pity, charity could spurn, 

[20] 



Reject the gold they would not let thee earn. 
O mighty spirit, tell what double ban. 
Made thee a poet and an Englishman? 



AN ANSWERING. 



E 



ADY. you ask me where 

The songs I sang have fled and why. 
You do not ask why vineyards fair 
Have come to die; 



Nor question why a river brave 
Sweeps to the sunlit ocean's breath 

And then at Yule-tide locks its wave 
In whitened death: 

It is for love of God*s sunshine 

The grape bedecks the stem with blue. 

Nor yearns to heaven the straining vine 
As I to you; 

'Tis for that sunshine on his breast 
The river sweeps his quest upon 

Nor could one wave o'ertake the rest 
When that be gone. 

[21] 



TO A PRETTY WITNESS. 



I 



LISTENED that day in the Court- room. 
Like a boy in a village school 

With half shut eyes to the learned lies 
And quips of a legal fool. 



I thought of the June-tide sunshine 

That flooded the Park outside. 
And the whispering breeze that stirred the trees 

Like a rising and falling tide. 

The sound of the breeze had soothed me. 

And beckoned my soul away 
To strands of gold where angels strolled 

In the realms of endless day. 

No stir in the golden silence 

Woke echoes rude to call 
My soul and brain to the earth again 

To the grey and dingy hall. 

There was naught but a vast of waters 
Wliere a ladder of sunbeams lay 

In dimpled drops on the billows tops 
And sparkled and died away; 

122] 



And a face mid the throng of faces. 

Fairer than fairest there; 
Great eyes of blue that looked me through 

*Neath a halo of sun-lit hair. 

A start and the vision ended — 

I sat *mid the legal crew — 
But the face was there with the sun-lit hair; 

I had lost myself gazing at you. 



SHALL she love thee best — or thy 
letters? 
Woulds't have her be thine or be wise? 
How can she read thy verses, 

Whils't thou art kissing her eyes? 



[23] 



A UTTER, 

FC rv i . e love tboQ ffwcA 
r - . s.iT £j& and grace; 
E : : : Zod, and not to diee 

s.y fair face. 
F:: rz. 1 r.'d langpnig eye 

Hvydirc^: ^e i :e 

For peace I feel in loving diee 

TT^BLak diee aboe: 
N : : C -yi coold gi' e re rii: ^.itee 

1 ~ i ' " ~ !>l! *^ IT. '■' I ' ~ 

5_:-; >:-:■ — irt ;:~t3 ::. : . z? at liig)A 

1 ."..:: _.zr. r. ;''-r:-.:i ? :::~ '.'.■::.-: mote ufi^ht. 



the: da\' 



T 



HE AAxaing I g^ to Vengeance, 

The Nigjit I give to Love. 
Have I made no P iogiea s dioelij? 
Shall dK Day not coont above? 

[241 



TO LIONEL BLANDE, 
Died March 20. 1895. 

THERE'S a street that stretcheth 
throughout our town. 
From the Northern Hills it runneth 
down 
To the great green ocean's bed ; 
Of the myriad on this street. 
Women and men we daily meet. 
Are many who loved the dead. 

Dear old Dick ! it is cold tonight 
Under the stone so broad and white 
On the Island hill-top's crest. 
Old friend, the creeds may some be true. 
If hope and heaven be not for you 
Good-bye, for none shall rest. 



[25] 



THE DAIMIO'S DAUGHTER. 

OTATSU SAN the Daimio's daughter 
Fair as a blossoming cherry tree. 
She went one night to the geisha*s 
quarter 
Just to see what she could see. 
Her frivolous indiscretion might 

Have cost her dear had her father caught 
her. 
For he was an ancient, lineaged Knight, 
Elxceedingly careful of his daughter. 

The samisen sang in the silence 

And the breeze came in at the door. 
She met officers three from the **Kan-ka-kee*' 

The American man-of-war. 
And one was the first lieutenant. 

And one was the bo'sun's mate, 
And the third was a dear Httle midshipmite 

Who didn't come in till late. 

The moon was high when Tatsu crept 

As soft as a little mouse 
Down the stairs, while the Daimio slept, 

Off to the naughty geisha's house; 

[26] 



She knew little girls of the high noblesse 

No business have in the geisha's quarter. 
And songs that are sung in the midshipmen's 
mess 
Are not to be learned by a Daimio's 
daughter. 



THE WORLD IS BRIGHT. 



I 



CANNOT tune my heart to tell 
A woeful strain tonight, 

I think my lady loves me well 
And so the world is bright. 



I wonder if she doth rejoice 

She hath a loyal Knight 
Who loves her with his heart's own voice,- 

If so — the world is bright. 

If God locked all the day above 
And gave this world to night 

I'd be content to blindly love, — 
I'd think the world was bright. 



[27] 



THE POETS. 



A 



DOWN the high road of the years 
The Poets troop — a jovial crew 

With songs of laughter, jests and tears. 
For such as you. 



Up the steep incHne toward the town 
Stands Adam's tree black to the sky. 

With golden fruit 'mid branches brown. 
For such as I. 

And I have walked a little space 

With these high-hearted gentlemen; 

Then to the town-towers turned my face. 
Nor paused again. 

Their songs are sweet and evening rest 
Is cheerier for their chanting bold. 

Because the yellow in the West 
Is all their gold. 



128] 



TO THE DEAD QUEEN. 

HIGH placed of man, high placed of 
God, she lies 
Enthroned in hearts, secure in loyalty 
That gives the Woman tribute of wet eyes 

And not mere obsequy to royalty. 
"The reign is over,*' but when this is said 
The world still weeps upon the Woman, dead. 

For goodness with no crown save her own brow 
Makes earthly majesty like brittle clay; 

Decks a queen bravely, e'en as now 
Victoria may wear both rose and bay. 

Each subject's heart is a cathedral arch 

Where white-robed choristers of sorrow march. 

Dead on the dawning of the day which sees 
The triumph of her people clasping hands 

With US, the Children of the Western Breeze, 
The Oldest and the Youngest of the Lands. 

"Vivat Regina!" on that other shore. 

Where Goodness is true Greatness evermore. 



[29] 



THE GODS AND THE PIG. 
A Japanese SoNa 

ONCE on a time in old Japan 
There lived an image making man 
Near Nagasaki's border 
And gods he made to order. 
He made his images out of stone 
Which he cut from a rock that stood alone 
In the very hottest torrid zone 
Of Nagasaki's harbor. 
He used to row his own sampan. 
This little image making man. 
For it is no part of a stone god's plan 
To aid in human labor. 

It's the way the gods have learned 

In dealing with mankind 
To make humanity do the work — 

I call it most unkind. 

One day when pestered with his wife, 
The bane of his artistic life. 
Who wished him to work harder, 
He trembled like a paper ian 
And cried "I do the best I can, 

[30] 



For a little image making man!** 

But his words did not retard her. 

Said she, "These gods you make of wood 

And stone cannot be very good 

Or some of them I fancy would 

Find something for the larder!'* 

It's the way that women have 

To be a trifle talky. 
They should be made to know their place. 

Here, and at Nagasaki. 

"Go swap your gods for a little pig 
And we will keep him till he's big," 
Said she in tones caressing; 
"For little pigs are nice on toast 
And though I never like to boast 
I know just how to serve a roast 
Of pig with onion dressing.'* 
This foolish little Jap of mine 
Said, — "Yes, if thus for pork you pine. 
To the butcher I'll just drop a line, 
I hope 'twill prove a blessing.** 



[31] 



It's the way that husbands have 
When women prove upsetting, 

If our Httle Jap had just been brave 
He wouldn't have got a wetting. 

So he swapped his gods for a Httle pig 
And put him on board his sampan rig 
And homeward turned his boat. 
But the gods were wroth, and rightly too, 
And they sent a storm that blew and blew 
And blew the sampan into two^ 
Swamped him and the little shoat; 
The sampan broke from limb to limb. 
To save their lives they had to swim. 
An easy task perhaps for him. 
But piggy, cut his throat. 

It's the way that porkers have 
When thrown into the ocean. 

They cut their throats from ear to ear. 
A very foolish notion. 



WHY? 



W 



HEN God gives speech to a baby 
The first sound it utters is," Why?" 

The same is the query maybe 
When a Gladstone lies down to die. 

[32] 



THE ISLAND'S WELCOME. 



Y 



OU stepped on this bleak ocean side. 

It blossomed as in May; 
To greet thee rolled the dark green tide 

And dashed thy robe with spray. 



Each dancing wave beneath the sun 
Rolled o'er its crest a tear ; 

It laughed to see thy reign begun. 
Wept that its end was near. 

Daughter of the West, thy smile 

Is warmer than the ray 
That gilds each azure melting mile 

Of San Diego's bay. 

The tangled hair, down o'er thy head. 

Falls like a loosened vine 
Of edel-weiss in verdure spread 

On lofty Apennine. 



[33] 



TO JOHN BOYLE O'REILLY. 

I SING of a singer that's dead; 
He lies in a world honored bier 
With the grief of two lands on his head; 
May his memory ever be dear. 
O'Reilly, the brave and the true ! 

O'Reilly, the kind and the pure ! 
Your big heart beats in your Song of the 
Streets, 
May its pulses forever endure. 

In the heat of the battle he fell. 

But not till a score of the foes 
Went crushed and defeated to hell 

'Neath his stalwart and pitiless blows. 
O'Reilly, the champion of men. 

Humanity's ever-armed knight. 
The handcuff, the sword and the pen. 

He bore them alike for the right. 



[34] 



The scribbler that writes with a reed 

Merely dipped on the surface of truth 
Never knows how it makes a man bleed 

To write his own heart without ruth. 
The preacher that screameth, "Alack!" 

At the follies and sins of the time. 
Often wears in his cassock of black 

The bud of an unblossomed crime. 

O'Reilly knew men's joys and griefs. 

The friend of the poor and the great. 
His land needed bread, not beliefs. 

So he cried: — "Let the orators wait." 
When the bridegroom shall come on that day. 

White robed from Heaven afar. 
What will his ministers say. 

When he asks how his "little ones" are! 
Unfettered by doctrines and creeds. 

O'er the record of blessed He will run. 
Then O'Reilly, his words and his deeds 

Will rank close to the Crucified One. 



[35] 



THE ASSASSIN * 

WHO is this man, and what his deed 
which chills the hearts of men? 
He had no woes, no wrongs to right, 
no hope 
More high than lowly life and reputation. 
Ten million know the Scime: 'tis yours and 

mine; 
It 'compasses the souls of all of us. 
There were a thousand he might strike save him 
On whom our heeirts were set. This beggar 

spawn, 
Who flung his poisoned lead in that great hesot. 
The murdered Chief, hath blood-smeared all 

of us! 
The gracious day is black, the lowering skies 
Are wet and drabbled like the nation's cheeks 
With bootless tears. We who have said 
Words of disparagement against the Chief 
Are racked with a continuing remorse 
That will not cease. We did but fight 
Against a gallant foe who answered us 



^Written at the time of the assassination of Presi- 
dent McKinley. 

[36] 



With manful deeds which would have turned 

our hearts 
And made us love the man we cavilled at. 
Then comes this greasy thing, this Polander 
Who was no part of us, no ally nor no foe, 
A breathing nothing — a fungus of the faith 
Of outcast Europe, — takes on himself 
To change great policies and tear men's hearts 
That men might speak of him. Let not his 

death be all! 
But rather let our hearts leap up again 
Like roses from manure. God give the dead 

great rest. 
White bliss unspeakable, and teach our hearts 
More gentle tolerance and kindlier words. 

But we be men and vengeance is our right ; 
Let it not cease with him who did the deed 
But fall upon his allies with great strokes. 
A human, kindly, common man has died 
To make us better men, so Christ will welcome 
him. 



[37] 



A CLUSTER OF CARNATIONS. 

THEY lay upon the sidewalk a withered 
mass of bloom. 
The cable bell their passing knell, the 
roadway for a tomb. 
But yesterday they blossomed in a far-off gar- 
den fair 
Whose every breath of perfume the humming 

bees might share. 
All carefully their leaves were pruned as 

though each were a rose 
With color of the robin's breast at early fall 

of snows. 
They thought of tender showers that washed 

the garden sweet — 
The cluster of carnations that lay dying in the 
street. 



INVIOLATE. 

THINK of me while these \iolets last; 
And when their brief career is past 
Still meditate. 
Thus for an hour thy thoughts will be 
What mine will always be of thee, 
Inviolate. 

[38] 



KYRIE ELEISON. 

THERE was no darkness in the sky, 
No night upon the earth, 
I saw the dead go marching by 
The great Millenium's birth. 
I saw an open golden space 

Which held no moon nor sun, 
But stretched unto His Throne, Whose Face 
No man may gaze upon. 

Kyrie Eleison! 

Sang we. 



TO MY BELOVED. 

THE white of a virgin's hand 
Upon her wedding day 
Is whiter than snow in the Northern 
land. 
Or buds in flowering May, — 
Or buds in flowering May, dear. 

But God has never guessed 
A milk-white tint for a flower's print 
As white as your warm, white breast. 

[39] 



MY WATCH. 

I MAY not breathe her name aloud 
While vigil soft I keep. 
But I'd not be one-half so proud 
To watch an Ejnpress sleep! 
Sleep! O to be the welcome sleep 

That presses on her eyes, 
Or else to be the silken sweep 
That close around them lies. 



THE NIGHT. 



O 



FTEN we walk in the night. 
She and I and Another; 

She is my own, my love alone, 
That Other a poet Brother. 



^^at if she bends her ear to hear 

When'er that Other talks, 
'Tis the Scime small ear my lips stray nccir 

At the end of those evening walks. 

[40] 



A ROSE AS RED. 



A 



ROSE as red as her lips are red, 
A green, green stem it swings by 

To stand on the shelf above her head 
And sway to the tune she sings by. 



TTie rose will die and its leaves will lie 

In the red tobacco jar, 
And its wraith will float from my ladye's throat 

To the hub of Hebe's car. 



ALICE. 



T 



O be without the sight of you. 
To live without the light of you, 
I swear it wasn't right of you 
To leave me all alone. 



I send these roses after you 
That 'mid your song and laughter you 
May take the kiss they waft to you 
In memory of my own. 

[41] 



PERSEPHONE. 

I. 

THIS is the story of Persephone who 
lay ^ 

In Cleopatra's palace 'mid the best 
And grew in beauty with each blood-red day 

Which rose in splendor opposite the West 
Then sank within the East and left the land in 

dark 
All unregretted. Each love-glance was a 
spark. 

II. 

And Cleopatra, she who loved no woman, 
Sla)ang all such as Antony found fair. 

With placid rage most humanly inhuman. 
Forgave this one because her golden hair 

Had once been laughed at by the Roman lord. 

Who said 'twas like a ship-man's twisted cord. 



[42] 



III. 

So grew Persephone, serenely lived 

And kept her bosom from the fevered mood 

Of soldiery unchallenged, who had rived 
TTie chastity of Egypt's maidenhood. 

Too poor for Antony ; for other lips too sweet ; 

Loved Isis; served the queen; to gods and men 
most meet. 

IV. 

Yet loved she Antony, but locked her love 
Within her heart where withered childhood 
lay 

And womanhood unblossomed peeped above 
Like earliest rose-twig bursting out of clay. 

The Roman, rioting in Egypt's majesty, 

Nor saw nor dreamt upon Persephone. 

V. 

And so her love, which left her heart unshook. 
Did feast on her mind and left the maid 

Upon the other side of that too shallow brook 
'Twixt maidenhood and madness unafraid. 

She saw her brain depart as children wake 

And see a filmy dream its day- wings take. 

[43] 



VI. 

If Antony had known a maid had given 

Her love to him, no single gleam had lit 
Those eyes which took their only light of 
heaven 
From Cleopatra's beauty infinite. 
The man who drinks Falernian doth not crave 
The reed-grown brook which offers him her 
wave. 

VII. 

But Cleopatra's maidens soon might tell 
Each other why Persephone stood by 
And watched the swift manoeuv'ring squadron 
swell 
When Antony his charger reined high, — 
Murmuring laughed and laughed in murmur- 
ing, 
"No love will serve her, save our queen's king." 

VIII. 

Yet told they not the queen, these babbling 
sprites. 
Their souls too small to fly where her's had 
flown, 

[44] 



But chattered with the eunuchs o' the nights, 

When sapphire heavens with star dust strown 
Looked down upon the palace from the blue 

immense 
On Love and Madness and Indifference. 

IX. 

Yet told they not the queen, but chattered low 

As boys who stone a hare perspiring. 
But kill not. Nath-less soon the queen did 
know 
Another woman looked upon her king. 
Vengeance awakened, called her sister Craft, 
Power attended them and Hell impatient 
laughed. 

X. 

Persephone should die in pangs and fear — 
So much the queen determined. Then a 
thought 
That martyrdom for Antony were dear 

Came to her mind and mis-shaped mercy 
wrought. 
It were too good a thing to die for Antony, 
Such bliss for queens, not for Persephone. 

[45] 



XI. 

A priest who read her even as men read skins 
With pigments spread upon them in array. 

Said: "Ponder not, O queen — this maiden's 
sins 
Are punished. Isis and not you holds sway. 

The maiden is as mad as moon-shaft white 

Which silvers up the river o* the night.'* 

XII. 

Quoth the hot queen: "Thou call'st her maiden 
too. 
What, tell me is this gift, this maidenhood? 
I had it once when youth was gold and blue 

And by our Isis 'twas not over-good. 
Thou and thy maidens! Glare not with stern 

eye! 
Thou art a priest, but priests can also die." 

XIII. 

^ ^ * ^ * ^ * ^Q^ 

Persephone approached the wanton's dais 
And smiled on Cleopatra's hate intense 
Bulwarked by madness and by innocence. 

[46] 



XIV. 

"Why should'st thou live, slave, loving An- 
tony?" 
Hissed the lithe queen all quietly brows bent. 

"Why are sands gold?" replied Persephone, 
And know you where the dead Endymion 
went? 

I like the Greek gods better, Egypt, do not 
you? 

Ours have beast faces, but Greek eyes are 
blue. 

XV. 

TTiine eyes are blue too, Egypt, and the ruddy 
hair therewith. 
Is like the heavy gold in the big mart 
All beaten with alloy, because the cunning 
smith 
Can make no vessels of a true gold heart. 
There's copper in thy soul, O queen, yet thou 

art fair — 
I would thou had*st my soul and I thy hair!** 

XVI. 

It chanced that Egypt, with the desert horde 
Gave battle in the mountains to the north, 

[47] 



And Antony triumvir, Egypt's lord, 

Called Cleopatra's legionaries forth. 
Copt, Nubian and Roman, sword and shield. 
Foot, horse and camel mounted, took the field. 

XVII. 
And then the legions started. First the great 
gray beasts. 
Slow-moving, vast, imperial, — urged along 
By Inde's brown mahouts on their temple crests. 
And horsemen cantering, all broke into 
song — 
"Love to the queen! and to our Antony 
The lover-warrior's tribute. Victory!" 

XVIII. 

Then acre upon acre of foot-soldiers who 
In brightest brass and linen yet unsoiled. 

With plumes of red and purple and of blue. 
Long raven hair Italian-cropped and oiled, 

Guarded the triumvir, whose keen eye 

Was dull to glory, while his queen stood nigh. 

XIX. 

And in their midst a litter eunuch-borne 

Of Alexandrian linen white and green. 
With poles of burnished gold like shafts at 
morn 

[48] 



When daylight's earHest eastern beams are 
seen. 
Jealousy's curst gift to noble Antony, 
The mad but prattling maid Persephone. 

XX. 

The eunuchs who upbore her could not tell 
their lord 
That she was mad, for each poor servant's 
tongue 
Had been clipped from his throat by the sharp 
sword 
And as a warning to all babblers, hung 
In the slaves* quarter, as though each 
Might warn his living fellows against speech. 

XXI. 

So Cleopatra, when her warriors left. 
Lay sobbing in self pity on the throne, 

Whose ivory arm of Antony bereft 

Seemed to show grief as poignant as her own. 

And gentler was she to each maid and hind. 

For sorrowing love makes even tyrants kind. 

XXII. 

The man who rides on quests of hardihood 
Hath matter in his heart which crowds out 
love, 

[49] 



As eaglets would displace the linnet's brood 

And fling it from the eyrie high above 
Down to the valley where with broken wing 
Bleeding it lies, helpless to fly or sing. 

XXIII. 

Then at night beneath the great date tree 

Rose to the moon the bubbling of the pot, — 
Gaped the great wine-skin, and the rough sol- 
diery 
Flung brazen helmets from their foreheads 
hot. 
Then Antony bethinking called a slave, — 
"Bring wine and the queen's maiden. Hasten, 
knave!" 

XXIV. 

And so she came in beauty to the tent 

And like a milk washed rose stood at his 
knees ; 

And to her shoulder straight the tv^light sent 
A ray of gold as though the god did please 

To guard his maiden with a sky-forged sword 

And check the wanton glances of her lord. 

[50] 



XXV. 

Tlien did the throat of the triumvir parch, — 
He thrice essayed to speak, thrice paused to 

hear. 
And backward from her forehead's marble 

arch 
He stepped and sank upon a camp chest 

near. 
The maid was fearless, *twas the man who 

shook 
Beneath her innocent confiding look. 

XXVI. 

"Thou dost not fear me?" "Lord, I fear thee 
not. 
Why should I fear thee? I fear all else but 
thee. 
Has Antony triumvir all forgot 

The evenings by the blue /Egean Sea 
When thou and I and Hermes over all 
Would hearken to the heron's nightly call?" 

XXVII. 

"I was the general of a mailed host. 

Lady, when last I looked upon that place; 

[51] 



There is some other Roman who has lost 

His peace in gazing on your lily face." 
She shook her head and answered, smiling, 

"Nay. 
Lord, we were there at even yesterday!" 

XXVIII. 
This strain I sing is not of Egypt's lore. 

Nor Antony, nor she who loved him well, 
I have beguiled thine ear to hear once more, 

A tale you once rejoiced to hear me tell. 
Pity me, Egypt, for I faint for thee. 
And in thy pity be Persephone ! 

Unfinished, 



[52] 



AUG 23 19" 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper proce 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesiunfi Oxide 



;^^^H Treatment Date: Sept. 2009 



PreservationTechnologk 

A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVAT1 

111 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 



One copy del. to Cat. Div. 



Ai**^ 25 •»* I 



